Don't You Live Alone Try To Earn What Lovers Own
by templeg
Summary: Lily finds out she's pregnant. Oneshot. Title from Danny's Song by Loggins and Messina.


Don't You Live Alone (Try To Earn What Lovers Own)

Lily's hands shake slightly. It totally fails to change what's in front of her.

There are probably spells for this kind of thing, but somehow the Muggle way seemed safer. Although magic is permanently woven into Lily's life now, she still doesn't really like using spells actually on herself. She always used to wince at Mary trimming her fringe with her wand over the sink. Magic was too…_alive_ to trust with something like that. Certainly not with this. Besides, she has no idea what the spells are, and she'd probably have to ask Marlene, which would involve _telling _someone, which would involve admitting to herself that this might actually be happening. She's having enough trouble convincing herself of this now, that yes, she really did get up at four am and sneak into the bathroom to do this, and this is really happening and she really is standing here in her Chudley Cannons t-shirt and her granny knickers with the broken elastic, holding a positive pregnancy test.

A positive pregnancy test.

Shit.

She stares down at her stomach. It looks exactly the same. Experimentally, she slides a hand under her t-shirt and presses it flat against her skin. She can feel her own heartbeat and thinks for a second that it's the baby's, which goes against every ounce of common sense she's ever possessed but makes her stupidly, briefly happy in a terrifyingly irrational way. And it _is_ irrational. There's a war on. She flinches at the sight of the newspaper every morning; she and James have developed a routine of picking it up together, like a bomb squad, squeezing each other's hands before turning a page. It takes forever, but it's the only way to cope. What sort of person could this baby be, born into this? With parents who disappear to fight unimaginable evil and might not always come back?

The image that comes into her mind now is one she's seen over and over in the last few years. James, bloodied, broken, lifeless, thrown in a heap somewhere and just left there. She pictures the flat without him. Herself in the flat without him.

And then out of nowhere, a new image. James with a baby, a tiny him, with his black hair, his gangly limbs flailing in miniature, grasping at the air. She adds a tiny round pair of glasses to the image and lets out a snort in spite of herself. She isn't one of those girls who melts into a maternal puddle at the sight of babies- she can see how they're appealing from a reasonable distance, but up close she's put off by the _noises_ and the _smells_ and _dear God, what if I drop it on its head?_ But this baby, this baby that barely even exists yet…

_I want it,_ she thinks. _It doesn't make any sense for me to want it, but I want it._

'Lil?'

Lily whirls round. The stick of plastic clatters to the floor, landing near James' feet, who looks bemused and half-asleep as he stoops to pick it up.

'I just wanted a piss…Wuzzgoinon? '

She dissolves into hysterics, unsure if she's laughing or crying, burying her face in her hands. James is beside her instantly, rubbing her back, squinting at the thing in his hand- he never puts on his glasses when he gets up in the night, fondly believing that not rattling around in the bedside drawer will stop Lily from being disturbed, even though she is inevitably woken seconds later anyway by the swearing after he walks nose-first into a wall.

James doesn't have a clue what it is, of course, and that just makes things so much more complicated, because otherwise he would look at the little plus sign and realisation would dawn and they would share an Embrace like umpteen couples on the soaps her mother watches. Instead she watches him fiddle aimlessly with it like a monkey with a Biro and has to suppress waves of hysterical laughter, which stop abruptly when he spots the packaging by the sink and seizes it like a man clutching at the last dregs of sanity in the universe. He screws up his eyes, staring at the lettering, and then he goes white and looks up at her and mumbles 'I just wanted a piss…' like a broken man. He puts the box down.

'Jesus fuck.'

There is a long silence where they stare blankly at each other. Then, very slowly, James moves towards her. Lily is frozen as he smoothes back her hair from her face, cupping her chin. His hands are shaking too now. She stays dead still until his forehead touches hers and then she collapses, sobbing into his shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of sleepy, unwashed boy.

'I love you, Lily.'

She hiccups. There is a trail of tears and snot all over the shoulder of his t-shirt, but then James has never been exactly squeamish. _That might well be a point in his favour._

James' voice is shaking. 'I love you, and whatever happens we will…we'll have each other, OK? And we will make the world a better place for our baby. Merlin, that was corny. Forget I said that.'

Lily pulls back and gives him a watery grin. He gives a bark of laughter.

'Sirius is going to have _kittens_.'

'Puppies', she corrects him. There is a beat before James snorts like a prize stallion and they are shrieking with laughter, clutching each other and probably waking the neighbours. _Puppies, _thinks Lily hysterically, _would probably be a lot easier._


End file.
